A RIVERBANK CLEAN-UP will take place on Sunday, 11th March, from 10am until 1pm. Meet at the UL Boathouse.

The event is being organised by UL’s Environmental Committee, UL Kayak Club, UL Sub-Aqua Club, the Limerick Riverpath Volunteers, and supported by the University of Limerick and Team Limerick Clean-up.

Feel free to do as much or as little as your time can afford. Many hands make light work! Let’s make our campus and surrounding communities a place we can be proud of.

On Tuesday last, representatives from various Green Campus member institutions from across the country met at the an Taisce Green-Schools Education Unit, Swifts Alley, Dublin. Here the group discussed various topical issues such as the possible elimination of the use of disposable cups on campus, among other key action items. This was the second meeting of this national work group.

The UL Lunchtime Walks Series has been in full swing over the last week as part of the Smarter Travel Workplaces Step Challenge 2017! With over a dozen UL teams participating, almost one million steps have been clocked altogether in the first week alone! Fingers crossed one of our UL teams might win the national prize again at the end of the month!

UL Enviro Soc kicked off the new semester by setting up a stall at the Clubs and Societies’ Semester 1 Recruitment Drive. Over 35 different clubs and society stalls were present for the event which took place at the UL Sports Arena. Society President, Criostóir King, Vice President, Kate McMahon, PRO, Nicole Glennon, and Events, Ariadne Bazaldua, prepared and manned the stall, meeting and greeting students interested in becoming members of the society. Over the course of the event they managed to sign up 40 new members! Special thanks to the team for their tremendous effort made over the course of the day.

UL Smarter Travel has been busy over the last few weeks running various events and initiatives to kick off the new semester! Orientation week saw thousands of new students brought to the Smarter Travel stall where everyone learned about the great smarter travel services and facilities that are available. Bike sales and repairs were also on offer at the stall.

The UL Journey Planner and 7 Tips For Cycling in UL leaflets were included in all freshers welcome packs, illustrating all the basic essential information for the main Smarter Travel modes on campus. The SU Student Diary included further various information.

As part of the semester start bike sales, St. Mary’s Aid Charity arrived to campus offering refurbished second hand bikes at extremely reasonable prices for students. While the stall was due to set up from 10am on Wednesday in the Main Plaza, a surge of students begun queuing in the plaza from 9:30am to get a place in line. As the St. Marys Aid delivery van arrived near the plaza at 9:50am awaiting the barrier to be removed to allow access to the plaza, the surge of students swarmed the van and the stock of over 35 bikes were sold before they could move any further!

In conjunction with the First Seven Weeks’ Week 1 theme of Getting Around Campus, a campus bike tour was organised highlighting some important landmarks across the campus including various historical information. The tour ended at the UL Clubs and Societies’ recruitment drive.

Our UL Bike Mechanic, Gary Sheehan Mobile Repairs, also returned to provide the weekly free bike mechanic service in the SU Courtyard where he fixes approximately 70 bikes per day.

As part of the ongoing work being done to develop a high quality waste management process on campus, it was decided to pilot a fully thought out waste management process in the Kemmy Business School Building and the adjoining Schuman Building. The aim of this pilot was to ensure that all steps of the waste process are addressed, starting from waste points of entry into bins on public corridors and in staff offices, and UL cleaning staff removing internal bin waste out into external bin compounds. It was envisaged that once a full strategy was developed and agreed on this self-contained and manageable pilot site, this process would then in turn be rolled out in all buildings across campus.

To read a a comprehensive report on the development of this ongoing process click the following hyperlink: